


ad lucem

by aishahiwatari



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: AU, Ash Tyler Lurks, Canon Divergence, Canonical Major Character Injury, Established Chris Pike/Ash Tyler, F/M, Getting Together - McKirk, M/M, Marriage Proposal - McKirk, Multi, Other, Talos IV, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 06:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19436062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishahiwatari/pseuds/aishahiwatari
Summary: Leonard speaks first. "I have it on good authority that Christopher Pike doesn't have a partner.""We were trying not to label it. Thought it would make it hurt less, when-" the man gestures to Pike, laying unconscious, irreparably damaged.Set through Into Darkness, an alternate version where Ash Tyler is there to be thoroughly pissed by Khan's actions and to save Christopher Pike. In a manner of speaking.





	ad lucem

**Author's Note:**

> "ad lucem" is Latin for "into the light" because trust me it just works for this and it looked ridiculous in English.

"I'm telling you, Jim, I spoke to his boyfriend."

"And I'm telling you he doesn't have one. I swear, Bones. I've spoken to him about it. When I- was having trouble with something, he told me he wasn't dating anyone."

"You're sure."

"Hundred percent. No boyfriend, no girlfriend. Nobody."

"Then who the hell did I speak to on the comm?"

-

Leonard makes his way back to the hospital after sharing some pizza with Jim, unable to resist making some more enquiries. As soon as the Enterprise had landed and he'd been able to transfer Captain Pike to a suitable medical facility beyond their damaged Med-Bay, he'd called the number noted on his file, and he'd spoken himself to a man who sounded genuinely concerned for Pike's welfare.

That same man had also committed to attending the medical facility as soon as possible, had provided enough security information to be verified as Pike's romantic partner and ended the call sounding like he was already moving.

It's only been a couple of hours. Pike's stable, pending further surgery to repair the damage to his spine, so there aren't that many staff around. Pike's record shows he's had no visitors.

There's someone in his room, anyway, standing at his bedside, head lowered and expression too stricken for him to be anyone but a partner or family member. He only glances over when Leonard joins him in the room. He's wearing a Starfleet uniform, too, one of the old-style accented blue ones that they're only still using on a couple of ships.

Leonard speaks first. "I have it on good authority that Christopher Pike doesn't have a partner."

The man gives a tiny, sad laugh at that, runs a hand through dark hair too long to be regulation. "We were trying not to label it. Thought it would make it hurt less, when-" he gestures to Pike, laying unconscious, irreparably damaged. Leonard isn't prone to fits of ego, but Pike would be dead if it weren't for the crew of the Enterprise. For Jim, who fought so hard to get him back and Leonard's own skill and steady hands.

"Did it work?" Leonard can't stop himself from asking, thinking of Jim, of their friendship, the times they've danced on the edge of becoming more. The times they've nearly lost one another.

"Does it look like it worked?"

It doesn't. The man looks exhausted, worn down. Scarred. Lost.

"He's stable, you know."

"Will he walk again? Will he Captain his ship?"

Leonard stays silent. He can't answer that yet. So much could still go wrong, things beyond the control of the best doctors in the 'Fleet. 

"He always said he knew how he'd die. That he'd be safe, as long as he didn't see what he expected. There are things that are worse than death." It's in the man's voice and very being that he knows that, he's not just saying it.

"Who are you?"

"Ash Tyler," It's Pike who answers, though, with an exhausted smile as he opens bleary eyes, lifts a hand to reach out. Tyler is by his side in an instant, taking his hand, leaning down on an elbow he rests on the biobed by Pike's head, too close for anyone to make any mistake about their relationship. They only have eyes for each other, Pike's soft smile not quite returned, Tyler almost in tears.

"Chris. I thought I'd lost you."

"It's not how I go."

"You would have handed yourself over to that maniac either way." Tyler's words hitch at the end. Pike struggles to move, but he raises a hand to touch his cheek, to brush away a tear with shaking fingers. Tyler takes his hand to kiss it, brings it gently down to Pike's side again. "Did your new crew get one of those signs yet? To count the days since their Captain last flung himself into a life-threatening scenario?"

Pike laughs, then groans. Leonard snaps back to reality, reaches for a scanner as Pike confesses, "I didn't even make it a day. Barely an hour."

Tyler presses their foreheads together to say. "They didn't even bother making any numbers above six."

Pike laughs again, groans worse. "God, don't make me laugh." He spares Leonard a glance as he works. "How's it looking, doc?"

"No change, Captain. I can up your painkillers but they'll knock you right out."

"Not yet. Will you be put off your surgery if Ash lurks until you're done?"

"I do not lurk," Tyler mutters half-heartedly with the air of someone who has made the same argument multiple times before, although he does turn sharp eyes on Leonard, then. "You'll be doing the surgery."

"Down, boy. Doctor McCoy here is the only reason I made it back in one piece."

Leonard is not overly reassured by the way Tyler clearly files that information away for later. He still hasn't really said who he is.

"You'll be careful, won't you?" Pike says, and he has the gall to smile in the face of Tyler's incredulous expression. "If the Ambassador and her entourage see you-"

"They won't. Let me handle that, Chris. I've been doing this a while now."

They're off again, lost in one another's eyes, so much passing between them that Leonard can't hope to understand of even begin to guess at.

"Would you give us a moment, Doctor?" Pike has only just finished saying before they're kissing, heartbreakingly soft, making something in Leonard's chest squeeze painfully as he leaves them.

He gives them as long as he can, while also making sure nobody else walks in on them. When he returns, he's somehow not surprised to find that Tyler has disappeared, but Chris is looking more relaxed than Leonard has seen him since it all happened, despite the pain. Leonard adjusts the dosage of painkillers he's getting, hoping he can get a little actual rest.

"We thought it would hurt less," Pike says, without looking at Leonard. He has a tendency to do that, now, to go far away but still remain so present. "To not put a name to what we were doing. We knew we could never be open about what we were, to each other. But not admitting it, not saying the words- it was all I could think about. Those moments when- I let myself consider I wouldn't make it back. That I'd never told him."

"Why can't you be open about it?" Leonard asks. It's the part that makes the least sense to him, and it makes Pike smile ruefully.

"Because if the Klingons find out he's still alive, they'll start a war."

"Jesus, Captain. Who is he?"

"He's a good man. You can't know any more, Doctor. But that's not why I'm telling you this. You love so strongly. Don't let your fear stop you. It can be taken away so quickly."

He's out before Leonard can question him more, before he can wipe away the tears threatening to spill because he knows, of course he does, what Pike means. And putting himself in Tyler's position, finding himself elsewhere and helpless while his Captain, while Jim is lost somewhere and maybe won't return, might never know how he feels-

Leonard can't do it.

He finds Jim at a bar, flirting aggressively with a young woman who knows he saved the lives of everyone on Earth but has never seen him truly smile, has never had to convince him to just stay alive, damnit, because she can't live without him. Leonard is absurdly rude, muscles in between them, pulls Jim's beer from his hand and sets it on the bar.

"Bones! What are you- oh." Jim melts against him beautifully when Leonard cradles his face with both hands and draws him in for a kiss, trying to pour every ounce of love he has into that one gesture.

"Why-" Jim murmurs the first time Leonard gives him a chance.

"Damnit Jim, can you just keep your mouth shut for five minutes?"

"That how long it's gonna take us to get back to our rooms?" Jim is grinning, but his eyes are soft. He's got Leonard by the waist and no intention of letting him go.

"Can I come?" the girl asks, rolls, her eyes at Leonard's glare. "Just asking. Have fun, Jim."

"Yeah, bye." Jim doesn't spare her another fragment of his attention. That's all for Leonard.

He takes full advantage of that over the next few hours.

And then he sleeps, to get ready for surgery.

Tyler is surprisingly unobtrusive throughout. Maybe it's not quite lurking, but nobody comments on his presence. Leonard is focused on his task, anyway, puts everything else out of his mind until somehow, miraculously, he's finished. Pike will need recovery time and rehabilitation, but he'll walk.

The first chance he gets, Leonard catches Tyler's eye and just gives him a brief nod. He thinks he sees relief break through his stoic expression just for a moment.

Leonard knows how he feels. 

He can't stay. The Enterprise is needed more than ever, and before Pike -Chris, he's insisted Leonard call him- can even walk again, he's handed the Captaincy to Jim.

-

Sometime later, Admiral Christopher Pike, once again Captain of the Enterprise, walks into a meeting room to see Admiral Marcus at the head of the table.

Ash Tyler stands at his shoulder. He gives Chris no more than a cursory glance, and although Chris stares for a moment, there are plenty of curious looks in Ash's direction. The other Captains either have no idea who he is, or they have to pretend, just like Chris does. 

Jim barely spares him a glance, is going through the pictures from the incident and frowning, all but ignoring Ash's explanation. Ash hasn't been introduced as the head of Section 31. He doesn't need to be. The subject matter makes it clear enough. Nobody dares question him, anyway. He has authority beyond what Chris remembers of seeing him in action, so long ago now, and Chris looks his fill under the guise of attentiveness.

Ash meets his eyes once. He's so damn gorgeous. Chris has missed him so much, treasures every snatched moment between them. He's so happy with what they have, all they can have, but he'd be happier with more.

He's not hit when the room explodes, but he's thrown off his feet, unable to keep track of anyone in the chaos, the renewed agony in his leg and up his spine crippling him for long moments with flashbacks as well as the pain. Jim had given them a moments warning, but it's not enough. Ash returns fire, shoots him a desperate glance once because Chris is in the line of fire, needs to move, now. He tries, drags himself as far as he can. He can smell the sharp tang of electrical fires, hears phaser fire and screaming, automated messages blaring. There’s a fuel leak, somewhere. His mind is reeling, head spinning, brain full of memories of the future.

He feels it, more than any of his senses can rationalise. He knows that this is that moment, the one that he saw. The beginning of the end, for him.

He looks up just as Ash looks at him, and then he knows, too. Ash's expression crumples, he mouths, _"I love you,"_ and it's perfect, he's everything Chris has ever dreamed and more. He hopes Ash knows, believes he does, has never been shy of telling him since the last time. 

It hurts less than he had thought, physically, just a sensation washing over him that feels icy cold, takes away all else. That's the agonising part, knowing what he leaves behind without being able to acknowledge any of it. He'll be able to tell them so little, now. He hopes Jim knows how proud he is, wishes he'd had more time to spend with Spock, impenetrable as he is.

And Ash, his vengeful shadow, still firing through the tears, furious and beautiful. Chris is so glad he got to see him one last time, while he's still complete and whole, that he got to steal those last looks. He prays to anyone that will listen for Ash, and Jim, and Spock to make it through this. It seems impossible that they won't, with the combined power of them, their intellect and their pride and their strength.

There are more explosions. Chris doesn't hear them. He sees huge, tear-filled brown eyes; distraught, impossibly blue ones, feels the touch of fingers to his face in his mind more than his body and wants to say no, please. Let me carry this pain alone.

He loses consciousness.

-

"Who was that guy? The one from Section Thirty-one?" Jim asks later when they're standing outside Med-Bay, watching doctors swarm around Pike. He's barely recognisable.

"I do not know." Spock lies. 

Then Scotty comms them, and they run to find the man who did all this.

-

They land on Kronos in search of John Harrison, and they find him. He moves like a superhuman, with impossible strength and powerful weaponry, but one of the armoured Klingons fights like a man possessed, with a murderous savagery even Jim can't bring himself to envy.

Both fighters are bleeding heavily by the time Jim and the others manage to intervene, phasers pointed at both of them.

"You should have let me kill him," Ash Tyler says, when they remove his helmet. He spits something at Harrison in Klingon, but he just looks amused.

He says nothing else, not while Jim detains him, not while he's transported back to the Enterprise, not while Leonard treats his injuries. Leonard knows better than to acknowledge him, but he does let him catch a glimpse of his padd while it's displaying Chris' steady vitals. Tyler's shoulders lose some tension after that.

Technically, he's a prisoner, but Leonard honestly believes he'll miraculously jump ship the first change he gets. He makes sure he's fixed up and fed as best he can, anyway, while Jim and Spock try to figure out what the hell Khan is doing.

Leonard sees him helping, herding casualties and panicked crew members during the attack by Admiral Marcus. Nobody even thinks to question it. He's found a Starfleet uniform somewhere, is wearing a red shirt and aside from the ridiculous hair and beard, looks as much an officer as anyone on the crew.

-

Spock beams down to find Khan.

Ash is already there. He's seen Leonard's experiments with Khan's blood, in Med-Bay, trusts in his hypotheses even if his conclusion hasn't yet been reached, and in between beating him to a pulp without a care for Khan's enhanced strength or stamina, or the people watching the violent street brawl, he jabs a needle into his neck and siphons off far more than is needed with a vicious satisfaction. 

"He's all yours," he says to Spock, before he beams back aboard, to deliver his grisly prize, and give Leonard the chance to bring Jim back.

-

When they return, Leonard helps out in Starfleet Academy Medical. They're more short-staffed than ever, after the attacks, so he's the only doctor working when he does his rounds, checking vaguely on the vitals of every one of his patients personally rather than trusting the technology to do it for him.

He has to take a deep breath to steady himself before he hits the button to open the door to Chris' room. It's so difficult to see him, but more difficult still, surely for Chris to see how people react to him, now. He won't show that hesitance in front of him.

In the room are Tyler and Spock. Tyler is holding a portable transporter. His eyes are wide and pleading. Spock just stands tall and waits for judgement or censure.

Leonard has no idea what their plan can possibly be. Chris is barely alive, can't move, only vaguely resembles the handsome, charismatic Captain he was. He can't speak or move unassisted, all his skin so badly burned that he hardly even looks human any more. 

Leonard gives Tyler a look that he hopes conveys his trust, his gratitude and his apprehension, turns around and walks away.

He sits at his desk, puts his head in his hands to cry, and it's a sign of how far they have all fallen that nobody even thinks to question it.

Nobody ever asks where Christopher Pike went. When Leonard checks records later, they show he died during the attack. His funeral was attended by a range of crew who are all shown deceased or MIA, and Spock.

Spock, who wordlessly leaves an excellent bottle of bourbon on his desk a few days later. Leonard receives classified files via a secure channel a few days after that. They contain all known records on a planet known as Talos IV.

And there's a file type he doesn't recognise but opens anyway. It makes the screen closest to him and his padd short out before he is presented with a vision. An impossible one; Christopher Pike, real and whole and smiling at him with such sadness in his eyes that it doesn't even occur to Leonard to refuse the embrace he's enveloped in.

"Chris-" he sobs, but has nothing more, his mind a mess of apology and confusion and loss for the man he tried so hard to keep alive.

"Leonard. You have no idea what you've done for me."

"How is this-" Leonard abruptly remembers so much, the files, the explanation. "You're not real."

Chris isn't offended. He looks a little amused, almost, as he considers that. "I don't exist on the same plane as you, any more. But that doesn't make me any less real."

"You're happy?" Leonard is crying as he asks. He's not exactly sure why.

"I am. I'll miss all of you. My crew. But this is where I'm meant to be."

"Well- the threat of execution will certainly stop your in-laws from visiting."

Chris laughs. It's a wonderful sound. "I don't have much time. Take care of each other."

Leonard sobs, wipes his eyes. How he can feel so strongly for a man he barely knows, he's not sure. "I will," he says, meaning the crew. "We will," he says, too, meaning Jim.

"You'll see Ash around. Now that you know to look for him."

"Lurking?"

Chris is crying, too, when he nods. "You take care of my ship, you hear? She's seen a lot, over the years."

"It's been an honour, sir." Leonard stands to attention. He has so much respect and love for this man that he can't put it into words, but he knows he doesn't have to.

"At ease, Doctor," Chris smiles, nods, and goes in for a hug Leonard knows will be goodbye.

"I'm going to ask him to marry me," he blurts, even though he hadn't been sure about it until that moment, when it solidifies. Suddenly it's the only thing he can possibly do after coming so close to losing Jim, yet again. And Chris looks so unabashedly happy he knows he'll never take it back.

"He'll say yes. He was sent the same files. I'll talk to him soon. Maybe he'll have some good news for me."

It's as close to a parental blessing as Leonard is ever going to get, and he hadn't realised how anxious he'd been about it until the weight lifts off his chest. He nods. And he hugs Chris one final time.

"Goodbye, Leonard," Chris' face is soft and open, and there's a woman's voice, calling his name, that makes his eyes light up the same way Jim's do when he sees Leonard.

"Goodbye, Chris," Leonard can't hold back his tears, but he watches Chris turn as he faced away, as though he's walking towards someone, and it feels right.

-

He walks in to Jim's quarters to find him sobbing outright, a few hours later, and he pulls him into a warm, comforting embrace, strokes his hair, listens to every single word he says because he never knows how long he'll have, how many more chances they'll get.

"He was the only one who ever- until you," Jim sobs, and Leonard holds him close, kisses the top of his head and smiles.

"Your whole damn crew believes in you, Jim. Chris and I just did it before it was cool."

Jim laughs, and cries some more, and then he sits up to level Leonard with that intense gaze. "Marry me."

Even with his eyes bloodshot and filled with tears, he's beautiful, like nothing Leonard's ever seen. He smiles, and he wonders what Chris said, but of course it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to his answer. "Alright."

They have the ceremony on the ship. For some godforsaken reason, Scotty is ordained, and he performs the ceremony with admirable aplomb and surprising sobriety. The crew give them gifts. Congratulate them. Someone sends them a sign that allows them to mark the days since their Captain last flung himself into a life-threatening scenario. The numbers only count up to five. Leonard can't properly explain why it makes him sob for five minutes straight.

-

"They're cute," Vina says, taking Chris in her arms when he begins to cry, too.

"They're idiots," Ash, a reportedly dead man who never even existed, sprawled out next to them on a planet where his simple presence is punishable by execution, mutters. 

"They can be two things." Vina reaches out with one hand to run her fingers through his hair and returns his smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m also on [Tumblr](https://aishahiwatari.tumblr.com/)


End file.
